Political Science Ph.D.

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Research

My research and teaching interests include: American politics, institutions (political parties, Congress), race and ethnicity politics, gender politics, campaigns and elections, participation and mass political behavior (voting, protest, social movements), politics and music, youth political socialization, and state and local politics.

I am also interested in pedagogy and educational research, with experience in special interdisciplinary programs such as First Year Experience (FYE), Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), and the UC composition sequence (English 1A, 1B).

My dissertation research involved the areas of:

party politics

race & ethnicity politics

state & local politics

In an effort to understand how the GOP is working to reform minority engagement strategies I spent a year engaging in participant observation fieldwork with the California Republican Party and the Nevada Republican Central Committee. My fieldwork together with a survey of county chairs allowed me to speak to how a political party attempts collective action across the multiple tiers of their organization, i.e. the national party (RNC), state parties, and county parties. For more information, please see my dissertation abstract.